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Owrigami lives!

I chanced upon Francis Ow’s origami page the other day and mentioned to him that two of the links there (my site and the BOS) were out of date. He replied that the site has been fossilised since the year 2000 and he no longer has access to it!

So, I offered to give it a makeover and incorporate some of his new work. The site is more or less finished, although I find it hard to leave a site alone and it will undoubtedly undergo more revisions in the near future. The favicon is his name in Chinese ;)

Back in the 80s and early 90s, Francis and I enjoyed regular, effusive communication (by snail mail!) and it was always a delight when one of his letters (or even better, packets!) came through. He distributed his work generously and wasn’t averse to developing and sharing ideas with other folders. David Petty was another who enjoyed Francis’ friendship and both he and I contributed designs to Francis’ “Hearts” collections.

I hope the site will give more exposure to this talented yet modest creator whose work has opened up many doors for creative modular folders around the world, as well as giving the world the genre of origami hearts! Here’s a model of his that I’ve always loved – I drew it for my “Origami Bible”.

Thank you, Nick. I met Francis when I visited Singapore last year. I knew his site but now it is beautiful and wonderful. Today we (Origami Oritai, India) made Francis’s Double Heart and it was very easy for me to teach because of your instruction. There are many beginners in our club. I really thank you to make such a lovely site. I hope many more people will start folding… Doumo arigatou gozaimashita. (in Japanese… THANK YOU SO MUCH!!)

Hey Nick,
We at the Japan Foundation in India have been learning origami since quite a long time and today we learnt to make the double heart as modeled by Mr.Francis, and thanks to you we were able to easily follow the instructions as posted on the website. Thanks much!!:)